Output details

Soliloquy IV for Bass Clarinet

12 minutes. Premiere May 5th 2010 at the Cervantes Institute, Vienna by Carlos Galves; UK Premiere 18th September 2010 at Shoreditch Church, London, by Sarah Watts. CD Recording: ‘Timeless Shades’ CUILL 1002 2013. Published by UYMP

As the title suggests, this work is part of a larger project, the _Soliloquy Cycle_, which I began in 1998. So far, the cycle consists of five works: the first three are for strings (Violin, Cello and Viola respectively), and the fifth is for recorders. The string pieces are interconnected and could well be described as a triptych; for example, all three begin and end on the same note, albeit in different registers. Similarly, _Soliloquy IV_ & _Soliloquy V – Flauto Acerbo_ have the same ‘point of departure’, but each takes a different path; i.e. the same musical idea is placed at, and operates on, a different instrumental canvass according to their technical and expressive potential.

These pieces are also part of my on-going research into the character of East-European music, particularly that of the Balkans, with which I have been engaged for some thirty years. My first-hand experience of working with folk musicians (from 1982-85), in a remote town in Southern Albania near the border with Greece, has had a lasting effect. There are no direct quotations from folk music in any of these works, but resonances of that sound-world can be felt at various levels. _Soliloquy IV_ draws especially on instrumental virtuosity, glissandi, and on gestures impregnated with quasi–improvisational elements. The Bass Clarinet repeatedly ventures into the extreme high register, as if trying to ‘imitate’ its sister instrument. Having forcefully stated its lowest tone (the foundation on which the whole architectural design of the work rests), the piece ends on its highest note, as if to reaffirm its full expressive radius.